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Scientific symposium on the origin and evolution of hominids

By 26 November 2003November 18th, 2020No Comments
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 26.11.2003

Scientific symposium on the origin and evolution of hominids

Studies on the self-awareness of primates, instrument use and social behaviour, and fossil reconstruction, and the most recent discoveries on hominid lineage are some of the issues that will be debated in the , part of the Universitat de Barcelona (UB, University of Barcelona), to be held on 27 and 28 November in the PCB Auditorium.


The symposium will be opened on Thursday 27th November at 9.30 am and will be followed at 10.00 am by a presentation by Fernando Peláez (Autonomous University of Madrid) on the psychobiology of primates. This symposium will also include the participation of Martin Pickord and Brigitte Senut, from the Paris Natural History Museum. In December 2000, as members of the Kenya Paleontology Expedition (KPE), these two researchers discovered one of the oldest species in human evolution, Orrorin tugenensis, in four sites in the Lukeino formation, Tugen Hills, in the district of Baringo. The finding of the remains of O. tugenensis, a bipedal hominid that dates back 6 million years, together with those of Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba (2001) and Sahelanthropus (2002), has made an important contribution to scientific understanding of the first evolutionary stages of hominids, and has opened up new hypotheses on the most direct ancestors of humans and on evolution in Africa.

The symposium is coordinated by Joaqíum J. Veà, professor of the Dept. of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychobiology and director of the CERP (Research Centre on Primates. Studies on morphological and molecular evolution and adaptive behaviour), and Jordi Serrallonga, principal investigator of the UB group HOMÍNID-Research Group on Human Origins, located in the Parc Científic de Barcelona (Barcelona Science Park). The symposium is an initiative of the CERP, which was set up by the UB to boost the scientific prestige of research performed in Catalonia in the fields of human origins and primate behaviour and to strengthen collaboration between UB experts in a pluridisciplinary fashion, and with highly specialized scientific disciplines that address human evolution, primates and their behaviour.

For more information and registrations, please contact Joaquím J. Veà or Jordi Serrallonga.